Lexington Scrabble® Club 2007-2008 Season

This reports on the season which ran from September, 2007 through August, 2008.

The Lexington, Massachusetts Scrabble® Club #108 has been running
continuously since it was started by Edie Berman and Muriel Sands in
January, 1980. We meet nearly every Thursday night of the year in a
comfy basement meeting room of the First Parish Church, situated on
Lexington Green behind the Lexington Minuteman Statue. Judy Horn has
been directing this club for about 23 years. Ellen Miller serves as
associate director. Mike Wolfberg joined the club within its first
month of existence, and he took on the role of club statistician within
the first year. The club has operated with its own rating system,
designed primarily by Alan Frank, since early 1981. Ratings are based
on the percentage of points each of the players scores in each game.
The club web site includes a detailed description of this system.

This is a report of the highlights of this club's Sep-07 through Aug-08
season. In this season, individuals played 5806 games, and so there were
2903 games in all. The average score in all of these games was 388.
These numbers were 7504, 3752, and 386 for the previous season.
Three seasons ago the club average was 13 points less.
It is likely the new words in the OWL2 contributed to the increases
in the average.

Of the 5806 individual games, 5439 were played by an "active player".
We define an active player as someone who played at least 20 games in
the season. The average score of the active players was 388 for the
season. These numbers were 7112 and 385 for the previous season.

Average attendance thoughout the season was 24.8, and with 51 sessions.
These statistics indicate that each player plays on the average of about 4.6
games per session. We realize this is higher than in many other clubs, and
so some of this club's achievements in one season should be understood
in this context. The average attendance in the previous season was 30.

156 different players have attended the club in the past 2 years.
During the 2007-2008 season there were
49 active players, namely those who played at least 20 games, and here are
the top 30, ordered by decreasing club average rating (not shown
here, but these are in the other table below) :

NSA ratings

We usually have about 6-10 players in the top 100
rated tournament players in North America,
based on the National Scrabble® Association (NSA) ratings.
Our club roster lists NSA ratings
of active players; these are updated a few times each year.

ISC Players

Challenges and Postmortems

The club has continued to use the
WHAT
program on one or two laptop computers available to all players at the
club. Players tend to handle their own challenges using the program, and
they often check on racks, etc. after a game is completed to see what
was possible. Since WHAT can provide definitions, this is an
efficient method of doing postmortems.

High Games

The highest game score in a club session during this season
was 655 by Richard Buck. He played five bingso in that
game. Other over-600 games:
Mark Fidler 637,
Ben Harrison 622,
Bob Becker 606.

Most Games

Trx. Kt. played the most
games during the season, with 354 games, which is
lower than her last season's number.
Three seasons ago she played 406 games,
which broke the record for the most games in a season.
Judy Horn played 300 games during the season.

Most Wins

With 182 wins, Joel Horn had the most wins.
Ben Harrison had 172 wins.

Most Points

With a total of 119,718 points,
Trx. Kt. scored the most points in this season,
Judy Horn scored 116,679 points.

Highest Percentage Above Average

In order to qualify for the highest percentage above average
accolade, you must have already played at least 20 games in the season.
The highest such game was Mark Fidler's 637, and
that was 60.2%
above his average. The runner-up was Bob Becker with a 53.9% game.

Many Bingos by One Player

These players made 5-bingos in games last season:
Richard Buck, Ben Harrison, Mark Fidler, Jamie Ryan, Joel Horn.
Judy Horn and Judy Cole played a game in which five bingos were played
at the game start and then no others were played.

High Losing Score

The highest loss during this season was Steven Saul's
473 (to Alyssa Faria's 474).

High Bingo

There were no very high-scoring bingos played, and it may be that
Steven Saul's 194-point
gLAZIEST
was the highest single play of last season.

High Non-Bingo

Bruce Adams tied the club record (which was set in 2001)
for the highest-scoring non-bingo in club history
with a 109-point play. Bruce played
ZIBET
at 14J, hooking the Z to an
FE
at J12;
there was also an
O
at 13K.

Many Wins Above 500

On 27-Sep-07, with 29 players in attendance, there were 15
games in which the winner exceeded 500.

Many Losses in the 400's

The highest number of high losses was
10 on 17-Apr-08, when club attendance was 32.

High Total

It may be that this game had the highest total of the season:
Rod MacNeil defeated Judy Horn 559-419, and so their total was 978 points.

High Session Attendance

The highest attendance during this season was
32 players on the final club session of the season.

Overlaps

On 13-Mar-08, Joel Horn made a 6-way overlap. On the board positioned
vertically was
TELERAN, and
ERASION was next to it starting after the
R in
TELERAN. Joel played
SEDARIM vertically to the left of
TELERAN starting one row higher.

On 22-May-08, Mike Wolfberg made a 6-way overlap.
PAGODA
was on the board at position 3B, and he played
NOTaTES
at position 2A above it.

This Club at the 2008 North American Championship

About twenty of our regular club players attended the
2008 NSC in Orlando, FL in July, 2008. Here are the most
significant accomplishments.
In 103-player Division 1: Joey Mallick was 4th.
In 134-player Division 2: Ben Harrison was 4th, Brad Whitmarsh was 8th,
and Joel Horn was 18th
In 133-player Division 3: Jake Bergmann was 18th.

More Details

Further details for many of the club records mentioned above can be
found on this club's statistics page.